In "A Terrorist Appeal to the Left," Daveed Gartenstein-Ross and Erick Stakelbeck in FrontPage (thanks to KJL) explain how the jihadist group Hizb-ut-Tahrir is trying to appeal to the American Left:
A recently released propaganda video by the Islamic extremist group Hizb ut-Tahrir is quite revealing. Not only does the video demonstrate the group’s growing effort to package arguments in a manner designed to appeal to Westerners on the political left, but it also serves as a barometer of radical Muslim groups’ broader shift in rhetorical strategy.The video, “Iraq: Past and Present Colonialism,” appears for the first twenty-seven minutes to be a standard leftist critique of the Iraq war, indistinguishable from Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11. The slickly-produced video begins with the history of past colonialism in Iraq—including the Mongol conquest of the Middle East and British soldiers’ triumphant march into Baghdad after World War I—and attempts to situate the current conflict within the same colonialist paradigm. In one scene, vivid footage of torture at the Abu Ghraib prison and Iraqi civilian casualties is interspersed with clips of George W. Bush and Tony Blair talking about how they will bring “freedom” to the Iraqi people. Another scene shows American soldiers roughly pushing Iraqi prisoners with bags draped over their heads down a nighttime street, the camera speed slowing down with each push to emphasize the excessive force.
As if Michael Moore’s influence on “Past and Present Colonialism” weren’t readily apparent, the video even lifts directly from Fahrenheit 9/11 the famous footage of American soldiers talking about how war is the “ultimate rush,” and how a good song can get you “real fired up” for battle. To demonstrate, one wild-eyed soldier sings a few off-key lines from the Bloodhound Gang’s “Fire Water Burn” (“The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire / We don’t need no water, let the motherf----- burn / Burn, motherf-----, burn”).
Only in its last eight minutes does “Past and Present Colonialism” veer sharply from run-of-the-mill leftist criticism of the Iraq war. This shift in focus is heralded by a Qur’anic verse appearing on the screen, reading, “Our Lord! Rescue us from this town, whose people are oppressors; and raise for us from You one who will protect, and raise for us from You one who will help.”
Read it all.
Have read it, and Thanks! Mr Spencer, for posting it here.
The greater risk lay in waiting, not acting:
http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/twining200504080807.asp
Middle East Mythology:
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/CarolineGlick/cg20050409.shtml
Late in the above article can be found the following paragraph:
"Will Hizb ut-Tahrir’s attempted seduction of left-of-center Westerners succeed? On the surface, leftists seem like unlikely allies for hardcore Islamists. On virtually every social issue—from the treatment of women and homosexuals to the proper place of religion in society—the leftist and Islamist positions could not be more divergent. Yet committed leftists’ hatred for the West can occasionally trump their liberal politics, causing them to search for allies in the unlikeliest of places."
Is the Left finding themselves between a rock and a hard place? Yes, so fashionable to hate America which basically ignores their irrationale. Also fashionable to embrace "the other" with their troubles and "root causes." Kind of like that odd pattern in the multi-culty quilt.
Yet now, the very strange totalitarianism of aggressive Islam reaches out. Will the Left recoil? Or will they go along? Stay tuned. It could be an interesting phenomenological genesis.
The American Left is philosophically very much like Islam, differing at the level of details, not fundamentals. The Left came from the same Platonic school of thought that all other forms of collectivism did--socialism, communism, Nazism, fascism, yatta-yatta. Even Islam was heavily influenced by Plato via neo-Platonism, although they branched off much earlier from the Platonic philosophical tree to create their own version of totalitarian "groupism." Islam is just "Brave New World" in a different costume, in a different setting.
Collectivism--including Islam--is characterized by nihilism, a "deconstructionist" way of thinking; it is through nihilism that they find themselves allied in an effort to destroy the United States and all remnants of thinking that regards the individual as the most important unit of society, rather than the State itself.
Like Islam, the collectivists have a goal of destroying individual freedom and individual national identity through the imposition of a single thought-controlled totalitarian system on the entire globe.
For more detailed information on how they (the Left) is going about the business of destroying the national identity of the United States et al. to create the One World, please see an article from WND: http://www.wnd.com/news/printer-friendly.asp?ARTICLE_ID=36752. For more detail on the history of this movement, and its relationship to Islam, you can go to www.6thcolumnagainstjihad.com, and click on my article "Part VI." It's also been included on Co-Jet.org under "Schools."
Please let me plug (again) something else here, the online book by Vernon Richards, "Islam Undressed." It's a fine overview of Islam that you and your older middle-school and high school kids can read, and from which you can get a lot of material to help explain Islam to your younger kids. It can be found at: http://216.198.64.171/
I'll tell you what so long as Gary, Cubed Ted and the rest of the self righteous (can't tell the difference between them and the muslims), keep up their offensive against the left, they will push the left into the Muslim camp.
Take time and look within yourself cubed, et al, the "right" is as nihilistic as the left.
To wit the example of Gary et al, instead of reaching out across the aisle, persuading and educating, they throw brickbats and epithets in a self righteous orgasm. If that isn't self defeating and nihilistic nothing is.
There is a Hate-America-Because-They-Are-Too-Strong set, with adherents in many camps.
"America" can become "The West", if that suits their battle plan. ("Dead White Europeans" aren't so effective a slogan anymore, since most Europeans have pre-surrendered, or joined in the self-loathing brigade.)
I prefer to ignore left/right as small time polemical dead ends, since their meanings are so fluid and subjective that you end up trapped before you can say a word in defense of the merits in either.
The "liberal Left" once meant George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Tom Paine, Mary Wollstonecraft, and all those who upheld the "Rights of Man (and Woman)", while King George III and the defenders of the "divine right of kings" were thought of as the "conservative Right".
Times and meanings shift. Dramatically.
If you want to preserve freedom of thought, you are now often called a conservative. Ergo- Right wing.
If you uphold radical moral relativism and a utopian socialistic dissolving of individual nations to a One World system, you tend to be thought of a the "new liberal Left".
I disagree with both definitions, and prefer to be thought of as a freethinker. Choosing to defend the Constitution -which is a Right-ist, conservative, 'neo-con' position to many. Especially those of the radical "Left" -who despise the "militaristic, genocidal, 'hyper-power' of evil America" and think I am obstinately keeping it from its righteous destruction.
When all I want is a bulwark against chaos, nihilism, mental and physical slavery to ANY dogma, and a rule of enlightened laws.
Too many in the "new Left" (Quaker Friends, anarchists, etc.) think that America (or the West) needs to "go". As essentially "bad".
But they then somehow think that something better will automatically fill the vacuum.
I'll take my chances with a country that can self-correct, laugh at its follies, and allow for all points of view. By Law.
The alternatives generally become Cloud-Cuckoo-Lands, where the 'populist' leaders (when they take power) then immediately 'forget' the Great Idealistic plan was for the "withering away of the state". And, instead, you end up with "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch", "The Scourge of the Swastika" and "Year Zero". Or all three.
The best theory I've found is:
try to be decent to those you know probably aren't.
(And know how to block a punch when they think you are being arrogant for daring to try and save their asses by defending the place that gave us the inalienable Bill of Rights.)
And a good rule of thumb:
Liberty for all but those who would destroy liberty.
*applauds BigSleep* That's the ticket.
I'll never understand how pointing out the indoctrination of high school and college students in the 'religion of peace' by Leftist Academics, is driving the Left towards islam. Seems to me they (the teachers involved) are already there:
http://www.historytextbooks.org/
But of course anyone further to the right than Gus Hall is automatically mentally suspect, from what giaour claims.